


bucket list

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Anti-Fascism, Awkward Flirting, Clothing, Dress Up, Drinking, F/M, Flirting, Humor, IN SPACE!, Implied Relationships, Inhumans (Marvel), Kree (Marvel), Male-Female Friendship, Nova Corps, Plotty, Politics, Slow Dancing, Space Pirates, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 02:59:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12181605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: Daisy and Coulson play pirates and explore career options in space.





	bucket list

"If we silenced them entirely, would we not become the very thing we hate?"

His eyes look up long enough to catch her smug, bitter laugh, arms crossed in silent reply.

"Where have I heard that one before?" he asks, the edges of his eyes crinkling.

It has the desired effect, the corner of her mouth turns up slightly.

"I hope you don't mind if we take a look around," he adds, nodding at Daisy.

The merchant watches her with intensity, as she paces the hangar and looks at markings on the inventory crates, her fingers sliding over them.

"The Kree have good and bad in them, just like every other race," the merchant spurts out, as she stops at a particular crate. His tone is unmistakable, pleading, giving it away.

"Did the Kree enslave your people and experiment on them to make them living weapons, by any chance?" she asks, turning over her shoulder at him.

Coulson watches the alien merchant visibly recoil, drawing up his red robes around him, expression changing from fear to loathing. "You're....Inhuman?"

"Yup," he replies on her behalf, holding up the blaster in his hand with a wave in case this jerk gets any ideas.

The compound eyes almost seem like they narrow, he thinks, as Daisy uses her powers and destroys the lock on the box.

"Wow," she says, reaching down inside and then lifting the object up in her hand, the carvings along its surface briefly gleaming gold. "Want to play catch?"

"No!" the merchant says, raising the two split hands on each of his sides at once.

Coulson frowns deeply at the Obelisk in Daisy's hand.

"Then I guess you won't mind if an 'abomination' like me takes this very illegal, very dangerous material, off of your hands?"

She shoves it back down into the box, and slams the lid shut when she gets no answer.

"Then," Coulson says, turning back to him. "You can tell us where we can find your buyer."

"Your kind are illegal," he tells them, as Daisy prepares the crate to be moved out and down the open hangar. "I didn't even know what they were transporting, I have a confidentiality clause-"

"Your buyer isn't Kree?" Coulson asks, sarcastically. "One of those fanatical Kree we're not supposed to worry too much about?"

"After the Great War, they were subdued. The Kree made many concessions. These religious maniacs are considered a joke, they don't-"

"You mean the ones who agreed to destroy all their human weapons?" Daisy asks, walking back up the ship's ramp to re-enter their conversation, her voice a faint tone of impatience behind it.

"Yes," he practically spits out at her, the false bravado giving away his fear.

"Then what did they want those for?" she glares at him. "If you don't think it can happen again?"

"Maybe they want to destroy them," he replies. "Like they would you."

"You know, you've got to wonder," Coulson interrupts lightly, watching Daisy's jaw tighten. "What else is in this hangar if he's transporting this?"

"I assure you, _pirate_ , all of my transactions are-"

"Pirate, now that's a new one," Coulson goes on. "I find myself thinking pirate suddenly doesn't seem so insulting, coming from you."

"Let's lock him up with his crew, and then move this other merchandise," Daisy agrees.

"I hope you're insured for piracy," Coulson mugs.

"Please, you can't!" Followed by a heavy sigh, the sound of defeat. "You don't know what they'll do."

"Or," she says, moving closer. "You can tell us who they are, and make it our problem instead?"

  
****

  
"Even out here," she says tersely, shaking her head, then setting the autopilot controls. "Space Nazis."

"You didn't really expect it to be all that different," he answers and dumps the crate he brought up with him on the floor in the open space.

"No," she answers slowly, shaking her head. " _Maybe._ What they did to my people happened a thousand years ago," she says with a shrug. "Longer. At least try to humor me," she says, watching him work the top open with his prosthetic. "What's that?"

She leans against the back of the pilot's chair and looks to where he's on his knees with the box.

"The good stuff," he says, lifting a bottle up out from inside. "At least, I think so. That's what I was told. That's an interesting color," he says sarcastically, holding it up to the light and peering into it. "Having second thoughts."

"I'm not," she says, swiping it from him and pulling the top off. It has dust along the edges, which must be a good sign, she thinks, before she swigs from it.

"Complacency, compromise, and people forget what it costs. We haven't forgotten," he says, shifting to sit, reaching up to get the bottle from her.

She's been holding the liquor in her mouth and finally swallows it. "Not bad," she tells him with a curious tilt of her head.

He follows suit and takes a sip of it from where he's sitting on the floor of the ship. 'It's great. So jaded."

"Pirate," she says with a growl and flops down next to him, resting her back against the crate.

"Kind of cool, isn't it?" He gives her a wide smile and hands the bottle back over as she wiggles her fingers.

"Was that on your bucket list?" She raises her eyebrows. "Along with flying cars and-"

"My own personal superhero?" he adds, as she stills and blinks at him. "Presently, Pirate Captain."

She rolls her eyes at that, but then gets a very serious expression. "I'm not a Captain. Or even a leader at the moment. Not like my mother was."

"And you're a lot of things your mother wasn't," he reminds her, reaching for the bottle in her hand, and briefly closing his fingers over hers.

"I didn't even get to know her," she says, with a flicker of her eyes, moving her hand away to push her hair behind her hear. "Or the history of my people. All of that was lost."

"It's out here. We can find it," he nods at her.

Her eyes move up to his earnest expression, "We should make a career of this. Hunting down these fascist creeps. Go interstellar with it.  Think....bigger..."

"I like how you think," he says as he takes another drink, the smile making its way to his eyes. 

Then he shakes his head and looks at the bottle's label, like he's not sure if he's getting too loose-lipped, or if he needs more liquid courage.

"It's on my bucket list, I just don't get to scratch it off," she tells him through a small smile.

"What else?" he asks with curiosity, offering the bottle to her and then setting it on the floor when she waves it away.

"Finding my parents, of course," she answers. "Having a family, which, sort of worked out, although not in the way I expected. Fall In Love: An Unmitigated Disaster, by Daisy Johnson."

"You still have time," he tells her drawing up his knees to rest his hands on them.

She shifts and then turns towards him, hesitating before giving in to the impulse and asking. "And what about you? Have you ever been in love?"

He smiles, a sort of hidden, shy smile, and fiddles with the fingers of his prosthetic hand.

"I've...tried. But it's only happened to me once."

Her head ducks to try to meet his eyes, but he turns and shifts to look down into the container again. "What else is in here?"

The subject changed, she narrows her eyes at him in disappointment and takes another drink of the liquor.

There's a swath of something that looks like silk that he draws up out of the crate and holds it out in front of him.

"I'm trying to decide if this is someone with good taste, or terrible," he chuckles.

"Expensively terrible taste," she replies. "What else could it be?"

His eyes sparkle as he hands over a gilded sword in its sheath.

  
****

  
She checks the ETA to rendezvous with the Nova Corps to offload most of their cargo.

They've agreed between them they're keeping the Inhuman stuff.

She looks through data banks of the confiscated merchant jump ship, searching.

"Hold on," he says, pushing the swath of cream satin material up his arm. "I've got this."

He links his prosthetic up to the interface and then taps on the holographic screen until he finds what he's looking for.

The jazz music fills the cockpit of their small ship, as Daisy listens to it bounce off the walls.

"You take your music with you?" she asks with a glance at his cocky expression.

"Everywhere I go," he finishes, obviously a line, and then steps back and pushes the sleeve back down his arm.

She can't help but laugh. "You do look the part," she says, reassuring him. The puffy-sleeved shirt tucked into the top of his trousers, the deep vee in front held together loosely by a gold cord.

He puts the elaborate hat in his hand smoothly on top of his head, at a distinctive slant and taps the crown down. She's not sure it's meant to be worn that way, not that it matters.

"Madame Captain," he tells her, offering her his hand.

"Fraternizing with the crew?" she teases.

"Pirate rules," he assures her with a knowing look, then shrugs. "You make it up as you go."

She holds her hands up to him then, watches him take a deep breath, and step forward into her frame, tilt his head so the hat doesn't bump hers.

Hands guide his as she starts to lead them around the small space, trying to find a rhythm. "I'm faking it," she tells him in a hush, trying not to step on his feet.

"What part?" he asks, seeming so effortlessly charmed, delighted in her, that it actually makes her stumble a bit more.

"All of it?" she mutters, then he catches her before another misstep and then spins her around to distract her.

She holds onto him to get a moment of balance and then looks between them at the extravagant pilfered jacket she's wearing, his shirt, then swipes the hat from off the top of his head, and puts it on her own.

"I am the Captain, after all," she tells him, clearing her throat. "And you're my First Mate. _Phil_."

"It's an honor. _Daisy_." It comes out too loud and soft at the same time. The damned song has stopped playing. "I'm sorry. _Captain Johnson_."

They both look down at his hand at her waist, slipped under the jacket.

"Mr. Coulson," she says, slipping away from him. "More music. Please?"

"Aye aye," he says with a smirk.

  
****

  
"This is some good leverage against the Kree. Not that we need leverage. But should we ever..."

He's already introduced himself as representing the Nova Corps, goes by Dey, and gives them a too friendly smile.

Even looks like he could be from Earth, but he's Xandarian.

"We thought you might agree," Daisy tells him, stepping forward and handing over the stolen manifest.

"Is this all of it?" he asks, reading it and raising his eyebrows at her hat.

"Yup," Coulson replies, slowly nodding. He gives Coulson an up-and-down glance.

"This might even be enough, for me to overlook the warrants that I'm pretty sure are for the two of you?" he goes on, setting the manifest down on a crate. "Old grifter with the trick hand, the one-woman wrecking crew with vibrating gauntlets."

"We're pirates," Coulson interrupts tersely. "Obviously."

"Who have _obviously_ never seen a pirate," Dey says under his breath. "First offense. Quite serious, though. Home planet Terra," he pauses while they stand quietly and glare. "Feel free to jump in at any time."

He almost chuckles at them. "Look, if you want to get tangled up with the Kree, be my guest."

"We're agents, undercover as pirates," Daisy says, glancing at Coulson. "A Terran agency. We've recently had Kree interlopers in our, uh, quadrant."

"Huh," he says, looking up to stare at them more closely. "Last time that happened, it was a whole lot of trouble."

"Trouble for who?" Coulson snaps.

"Everyone," he blinks and then steps closer to them. "What's the name of your agency?"

"Secret agency," Daisy clarifies. "Um," she starts, then looks at Coulson.

"S.W.O.R.D.," he blurts out.

"Sword?" Dey winces. "Like the bladed weapon?"

"Sentient World Observation and Response Department," Coulson nods, then purses his lips and glances at Daisy's impressed expression.

"That's a mouthful."

"And what does Nova Corps stand for?" Daisy asks pointedly.

"Nova Corps," he huffs back. "Never heard of you guys."

"Yeah, that's the whole secret part," Coulson says smugly.

"Next you'll tell me those warrants are part of your cover?" he laughs, looking at Coulson's shirt.

"Yup," they answer together.

With that out of the way they say their goodbyes to Dey, and his suspicion, heading back quickly towards the docking entrance.

"S.W.O.R.D.?" Daisy laughs over her shoulder as she walks up their ship's hangar. "You're quick on your feet."

"I felt...inspired," Coulson adds, stopping close behind her, smiling as he puts his fingers to the switch to close the doors after them.

Dey peers at them from afar as the hangar starts to shut, sees them stare back at him briefly.

Although he can't say entirely for sure as he squints, he thinks they look a little too close right now.

"Secret agents my ass," he says, turning away.


End file.
